


An Act of Faith

by Lore55



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, American Wizard in london, Culture Shock, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ilvermorny House - Thunderbird, Magical Theory, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Original Character(s), Parseltongue, Speculation, Urban Fantasy, no editing we die like men, starts in book one, starts in hogwarts but gets its own plot, transfer to hogwarts, wandlore is important
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 18:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18900619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lore55/pseuds/Lore55
Summary: Faith Fawley’s whole existence is, if you ask her, utter bs. The magic is nice, but she could do without the tragic backstory and the genocide.Oh, and the talking snakes. Those too.





	An Act of Faith

Faith Fawley missed Brooklyn more than she ever thought she would. 

 

She missed the crowded streets and the noise. She missed the railroad laced streets and the smell of the bay. She missed the sprawling architecture of Greenwood and the brightness of chinatown in january. She missed the constant chatter and the bastardization and hybrids of languages, spanish, portuguese, cantonese and mandarin. She missed the bodega down the street and Cosiano’s truck, and she missed the smell of food on sunday mornings that poured from the windows and almost overpowered the smell of smaug. 

 

London was different. 

 

There were no ally’s overflowing with people or trash or shadows. THere were no alley’s period. The builders were pressed side to side, the only way you knew where one ended and the other began was the paint might be different. 

 

It was also filled to frickin brim with hipsters and shakespeare enthusiasts, which made sense because they had museums the way Turtle Bay had drink specials. 

 

There were less cars and more people and less public transportation. The city itself was also smaller, the people packed closer together even in the neighborhood that Cain and Anna had picked out for them. 

 

Neither of them was from Longdon.

 

Anna, like her father, was from Dublin. They had told her stories of it, but Faith hadn’t been to Ireland at all since shortly after she was born. Anna Caraway had grown up down the street from the old Fawley house, located in a small magical neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. Faith had never seen that, either. 

 

She had been raised inside her dad’s brownstone in Sunset Park. The inside had been old, the walls decorated with outdated floral printed wallpaper and furnished like a magazine from the fifties. Her aunt’s aesthetic, dad had told her once. It had been hers before it had been his, and he hadn’t had the heart to change everything inside when he moved in with his daughter, his childhood friend, and a man who had served their family so long no one remembered what the world was like without him. 

 

Cain had come from somewhere in Wales, though Faith had known him all of her life. He never told her where, and she didn’t know how old he was. He looked somewhere between fifteen and thirty, depending on his mood, and he had a peculiar affinity for ravens. They flocked to him, even in a city where pigeons were more common place. 

 

He and Anna, who had eventually become ‘mom’ to Faith, had raised her with her dad. They taught her little magics, and old secrets, and when she inevitably brought some poor creature up the steps to the tacky red door they helped her help it. 

 

Anna taught her healing spells before she had her Wand License, and Dad showed her how to set hollow bones and drop milk into sharp toothed mouths with her hands. He was more a scientist than a wizard, she thought some days. 

 

Her family was a good sized, but small and far from nuclear. Not that any of their neighbors could say much. The Diaz’s on the left of them were all girls, five daughters, one mom, and two aunts from the dads side, and the Whitney’s only saw  _ their  _ dad during scheduled visiting hours. Faith had grown up running in the street with Jasenya and Mallory and their St. Bernard Tuffy. 

 

Now she stood in a hotel room, looking out a window at a city she didn’t recognize. 

 

They couldn't see the london eye or any of the read sights from there. Even if they could, Faith didn’t care for them. 

 

Faith preferred people, and the people were bustling around brightling beneath her windows, with their strange accents and their wrong-side-of-the-road driving. 

 

A large hand dropped onto her shoulder, making her jump. Cain was quiet, always quiet, he could appear and vanish like a shadow on a wall and he took great joy in scaring the christ out of Faith. 

 

“Are you ready?” he asked, smiling down at her with straight white teeth and black eyes that sparkled in the city lights, jet set into deceptively light skin. 

 

Faith frowned at him. “ _ No _ ,” she said emphatically. “I’m not. This is gonna suck. I’m going to be the only one there coming in late, I’ll be the only one there who’s american-” 

 

“Technically, you’re still Irish.” 

 

“That’s not what my voice says. ‘S not what my clothes say.” 

 

“You’ll be wearing a uniform,” Cain reminded her. 

 

“So?” 

 

Anna walked in from the hallway, a bucket of ice in hand and a coke in the other. She swept her green eyes across the room, her small red mouth pursed instead of smiling. She’d been pissed at Faith since last July. 

 

“Stop complaining. This wouldn’t be happening if you hadn’t gotten yourself expelled from Ilvermorny. You’re lucky Dumbledore agreed to take you. If he hadn’t-” 

 

“I know, I know, you ‘don’t know what you would have done’,” she mocked, repeating the words that Anna had been using half a year. “Whatever, I know I’m a terrible student or whatever I don’t wanna think about that right now, okay?” 

 

Her temper was short, and Anna’s was quickening. 

 

“You haven’t wanted to think about it for four months! You can’t keep doing these things, Faith! Do you think this is what you parents wanted? For you to throw your education away? You can’t skate by on natural talent alone.” 

 

“I know!” she shouted, her fingers curling into fists. Cain touched her shoulder again, but made no move to join either side. 

 

“Then why are you acting this way? You’ve been talking with your fists, we didn’t raise you up like this,” Anna’s voice grew harsher. Someone banged on the wall between their room and whoever was in 15. 

 

They both fell silent. Faith felt cold and angry and her hands tingled. 

 

The worst part of it all was that Anna was right. If Faith had controlled her temper, she would still be in the brownstone, waiting for school to start and she would go back to Ilvermorny with Claire Calderon, Dillon Weis, and Jane Huston. She would still be sweating in the streets of Brooklyn, climbing fire escapes at twilight, counting the ships that sailed through the bay and mocking tourists that actually called the city ‘that big apple’. 

 

Instead she was a million miles away. In a country that she was a native to but knew nothing about. In days she would be surrounded by strangers. In an actual boarding school, not a used-to-be-boarding school with a magical bus service.  

 

Faith sat down hard on one of the seats in the room, seething quietly. Her breath was still quick and her who body felt like she’d been dipped in ice. The air felt thick and unpleasant while Anna sat on her bed, one of two in the room, plus a pull out for Cain. Faith looked back out the windows, the shining light felt like they were symbolizing her own demise. 

 

It was going to be a long year.

* * *

 

The thin box that held her wand was a nice lacquered acacia, like the wand that rested inside. She had gotten it upon her enrollment in Ilvermorny, like all of her classmates. 

 

On the first day of school all of the kids gathered before the house statues, and one at a time stepped between them. Faith could remember well the tall wooden creatures, carved deeply and towering above the eleven year old children. They had walked up, one by one, and each time a student was there a statue would glow, or roar, or in Faith’s case beat elegantly crafted wings. 

 

After everyone was sorted they went one at a time to a table behind the statue of the Pukwudgie. There, the Charms teacher, Mrs. Eiler’s, had five boxes set in a row. You couldn’t tell what was in each one, they were identical, but Ilvermorny had contracts with five specialized wand makers across the continent. One used Wampus Cat hair, one used Rougarou claws, another White River Monster spine, then Glawackus teeth, and last was Thunderbird tail feathers. Faith had turned each box over in hand and got little more than a small rattle from the spine before she barely touched the tail feather and a crack of thunder shot from her fingertips and wind whipped so fiercely through the room it tore her hair from its ponytail. 

 

She had been handed a number of wands in boxes from the Thunderbird section in the opened wall before they had settled on Acacia. 

 

Once she had a house and a wand she had gone up to the rafters to join the rest of the Thunderbirds, marked beneath a banner with the bird emblazoned across. 

 

It felt like a betrayal to be going to Hogwarts, to be sorted into a different house. It felt like even more of a betrayal to walk into Ollivanders in Diagon Alley to get a new wand. 

 

The british put a trace on wands of under age wizards, built into the very wood. It lifted automatically when they turned seventeen. Her Thunderbird wand was registered on her Wand License, but didn’t have a Trace. She had to get a new one that had one on it. So, with Cain at her side and Anna off to find the new books she was going to need, they stepped into the old school building. 

 

It was small, cramped, with wands stacked up from floor to ceiling in boxes like the one her own wand rested in, back in the hotel room. They weren’t the only ones in there. There was a massive man covered in wild hair holding a crooked pink umbrella, and a boy a couple years younger than Faith. His hair was a black birds nest, and his green eyes were stuck behind wide, ill fitted glasses. 

 

In front of him was a tall, thin man with very pale eyes and long fingers. A measuring tape lay crumbled on the floor. 

 

“ -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out,” he encouraged the boy in a soft, high voice. His eyes glanced towards Faith and her shadow. “One moment, please.” 

 

Faith nodded and stayed by the door, in the light that fell in from the window. Cain left her and wandered around the store, looking up and down the piles of wands. The boy was handed another wand, and another, and another, and by fifteen Faith was getting bored and maybe a little annoyed. The pile of wands was getting higher and this man, whoever he was, was getting more and more excited and muttering more under his breath. 

 

Faith crossed her arms over her chest and leaned on the doorframe, watching as finally, finally, the boy waved a wand and sparks flew out of it. 

 

So the whole process was just guess and check? How long was it going to take her to get her wand?  

 

_ Shit _ . 

 

“Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... "He put put the wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper,still muttering, "Curious... curious.."

 

For the first time, the boy spoke up. He had a small, shy voice. “Sorry," said the messy haired boy, "but what's curious?"

 

The man fixed him with his pale stare, the intensity in it made Faith’s skin crawl. Like he was looking beneath the kids skin and into something else.

 

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. Itso happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather. Just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar."

 

Faith was, suddenly, much more interested in the boy, and much more creeped out by the man. Ollivander, she guessed. ‘Mr. Potter’ and ‘scar’. Harry Potter? 

 

"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember.... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter.... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible, yes, but great.” 

 

A chill crawled its way up Faith’s spine. She did not like Ollivander at all. But Anna insisted he was the best wand maker in the country, and Cain backed her up. So there she stood, in the room, watching the Boy-Who-Lived pay for his wand and leave, looking more than a little dazed. 

 

Faith was up next. 

 

Her fingers tingled and her nerves her high as those pale, moon like eyes centered on her. Their attention was not welcome. Not at all. 

 

“Sorry for the wait, quite a show though wasn’t it?” he didnt’ give her a chance to explain. He glanced very briefly at Cain. “You must be the new Fawley girl then!” 

 

“Faith,” she confirmed. 

 

“What’s your wand hand?” he asked. Faith held up her left hand and he got to work, measuring and muttering and humming. “I remember your father’s wand. 12 inch, Sycamore with a Dragon heartstring. Suitably swishy. Shame what happened to him, sorry to say.” 

 

Faith swallowed bile that rose in her mouth. “Yeah,” she said simply. “Shame.” 

 

“And your aunts wand as well. Sonya, 10 inch Fir with a unicorn hair core. Rigid. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to hear that she’d died. Fir is called survivors wand, and I’ve always found that to be true. I suppose there are exceptions for every rule, aren’t there?” 

 

Somehow Ollivander made talking about her dead relatives sound like talking about the weather. He left her behind and came back with a box in hand. He pulled a wand from within, shorter than her first. 

 

“Here we go. 10 inch holly, dragon heartstring, supple.” 

 

Faith picked it up, feeling grief sick and angry and guilty and she waved it. A raincloud began gathering above her head. Ollivander grabbed the wand from her and set it aside before the rain could fall and grabbed another wand, pushing it into her cold fingers. 

 

“9 inch Larch, Unicorn hair.” 

 

She barely touched it before he replaced it with a new wand, muttering under his breath about ‘touchy woods’. 

 

“11 inch Pine, Unicorn hair.” 

 

“14 inch Apple, Dragonheart string.” 

 

That one he paused on, and it sparked a few times for her before he took it and thrust one more into her waiting hands. 

 

“Try this one. 13 inch Redwood, with a Phoenix feather.” 

 

Faith did as she was bid, waving the wand about. A trail of golden mist trailed after and the coldness in her was replaced by a heat that raced up her arm and into her body.  

 

“Perfect!” Ollivander cheered. He took the wand from her and lay it in the thin box that he wrapped in brown paper. Cain came over and paid for it and the pair of them left the little store. Not soon enough for Faith’s taste. She did  _ not  _ like that man. 

 

Cain lead her through the crowded streets of Diagon Alley and they met up with Anna in front of the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. She had bags in her arms full of books. She was still ticked at Faith, and made no move to say anything to her one their way out. They grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel, leaving the magic neighborhood, the creepy wand man, and the Boy-Who-Lived behind. 

 

Not for long.

* * *

 

Cain took her to the train station the next day. 

 

Her backpack was light and spelled to stay that way on her back and her hard suitcase was small and looked like R2D2. She stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of brown trunks, the grey weather, and the people in robes that clashed horribly with her jeans and leather jacket. Cain made a formidable shadow across her shoulder, tall and light with his hooked nose and his dark eyes, dressed all in black. Cain liked black. 

 

“I’ll send a raven for you tomorrow,” he said, helping her out of the cab. She grasped his hand and followed him through the crowds, up to the platforms. 

 

“I’m pretty sure people here use owls,” Faith reminded him. 

 

“They used to use ravens. For years, and years. Then the muggles got wise and they had to switch. “ 

 

“Now owls are about the most famous witch thing ever. Besides black cats. I should get a black cat.” 

 

Cain snorted. “You could. But you’d be better off with something with wings. The Raven is a part of your family crest.” 

 

“So’s the Adar Llwch Gwin, and they’re part cat.” 

 

Cain merely shrugged and brought her along, towards platforms nine and ten, labeled clearly with big signs set above them. There was a mob of redheads moving in too, and by the platform, looking lost and a little frightened, was the boy she’s seen before. 

 

Harry Potter. 

 

He had a trunk in front of him with a big white owl set on top of it. His clothes were baggy and ill fitted and his glasses were taped in the middle. His hair was, once again, an utter disaster. 

 

Faith sighed softly and came up to him, bringing Cain with her. 

 

“Hey,” she said. The boy, who was really, really small, jumped in surprised and looked at her. “You look lost.” 

 

“I am a big, I suppose. I’m trying to find platform nine ¾. But, there isn’t one.” 

 

“There’s a magic trick to it,” Faith told him. “Watch,” She shoved Cain at the wall and he vanished past it, snapped a curse at her on his way. Faith smiled brightly at him. “See? Just go through the wall and you’ll pop up on the other side.” 

 

Faith grabbed her bag tighter, turned from Harry Potter, an walked through the wall with as much confidence as she could manage. She stepped out of the way in time to watch Harry come through after her, his green eyes bright with wonder as they left the mundane and the no-maj’s behind and stepped back in time to the bright red steam engine and a place teaming with witches and wizards. 

 

“See?” she asked, “Not that bad.” 

 

“Faith,” Cain nudged her. “The train’s leaving in a minute. Get going. You’ll see your friend around.” 

 

Faith rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. I’m going. I’ll see you later, Cain,” she promised. They tapped their fists together. Then Cain did something weird. 

 

He pulled her into a hug. 

 

“Stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid,” he whispered. 

 

Faith swallowed her suddenly thick throat. 

 

“I’ll try. “

 

Cain let her go and she left him swiftly, her head down, trying not to talk to anyone or make eye contact. She hadn’t expected saying goodbye to be so hard. She climbed onto the train, her bags held close to her. And went to find a seat. She needed to sit down, and not think about this. Her new life was beginning today. 

 

She wasn’t ready. 


End file.
